On my eighteenth birthday, almost a year ago now, I got my very first tattoo. My mother wasn't happy about it, but she didn't have to be; I was an adult by then, and I used my own money.
I had actually requested that it be a Christmas present the previous December--not the actual tattoo, I'd still pay for it, but the parental permission required to get a tattoo before I was an adult. Obviously, my parents said no, and, actually, the fact that they did kind of hurt.
See, this tattoo wasn't just for shits and giggles. I got two words printed, one across each shoulder; "Always Loved," self-inflicted black scars printed over the self-inflicted white scars to forever remind me that I have other options. I wanted to get them to mark a year of staying safe; instead, because my parents didn't get it, I got them to mark a year and four months.
If you can't tell, I'm still a little bit upset with them. It's always felt like my parents are better at pretending things are fixed than at actually fixing them. When I was ten, we were broken as a family, and we never healed. I was forbidden to tell anyone about what had happened, and my parents never talked to us about it, so I personally never had the chance to heal, either. Once it was far enough behind us, my parents just pretended and assumed that things were fine, nevermind that their oldest daughter was having nightmares and vivid, terrifying flashbacks and probably had PTSD from the whole damn thing, and fuck only knows what their younger son was going through.
The same thing happened during my healing process from the self-injury. Yeah, they talked to me and they were more careful with me than before, because the doctors told them to do, but by the time six months had passed and I hadn't once relapsed, they were back to their old ways, pretending that everything was fine once more. They never saw the intricate support system that I had set up around myself, the steel scaffolding and iron walkways I had constructed to stop myself from falling from my constantly precarious position. They saw only that I had not fallen, that I was not bleeding, and they felt content to return to the way things used to be. They never understood, they still don't understand, that just because I'm better now doesn't mean it never happened.
Since I marked myself with a permanent message of my friends' love, it has kept me safe better than anything else, because it has reminded me of everything else. My parents never got that; they didn't understand that my genetics plus the way they raised me equaled a self-esteem so low that I had to be reminded. They don't seem to understand that this isn't something I have gone through, it's something I'm still going through. They don't get that some days it still takes everything that I have to just keep breathing, let alone get out of bed and go to work and class and be around people without making everyone worry about something that will only get better with time.
The thing that makes it worse, though, is that I have told them. I told them that, while I was better, I still wasn't completely better. I told them what the tattoo means to me. I told them that it would help me stay safe. I told them. This isn't about a lack of communication on my part; I tried. I really, truly did. I really did want them to understand, but they refused to do. When my birthday was drawing near, my mother had the audacity to suggest that I put the words somewhere else. I told her, again, what the tattoo meant, that putting the words over the scars was to remind me that the love other people felt for me was more powerful than any pain I could feel, and that no matter how heavy my burden was, I had people who would, and were willing to, share it with me.
I remember exactly what she said: "I know that, but you wouldn't be able to wear sleeveless dresses to anything fancy. Thick straps would cover them if they were under your shoulder blades."
Like hell if I care if the words are visible at a wedding or whatever. All that would happen would be that everyone would know that I'm loved, and I'm pretty sure that they would assume that there are people who care about me anyway. It's not as if I had a bottle of alcohol or some drug tattooed to my shoulders; these words are not something of which I feel ashamed, nor are they something I want to hide. They are an important part of me, and a reminder that I don't need to go through anything alone.
Maybe my parents were concerned that this would just be another way for me to make myself feel pain, but nothing could possibly be farther from the truth. For the rest of my life, I will have a reminder of what I did to myself, of all the pain and emptiness that I felt, of what happened when I tried to go it alone, etched into my body. Because of the tattoo, I will also carry a reminder that I needn't ever do it again, that all my hurt cannot control me, and that, no matter how lonely I feel, I will never, ever be alone.
No comments:
Post a Comment